


Summer Afternoons

by sweetkidlousycook



Series: bb Snape and Lily stories [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Asexual Severus Snape, F/M, Flower Crowns, Gen, Gender Issues, Hair Braiding, Shippy Gen, teenage angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-24
Updated: 2015-02-24
Packaged: 2018-03-14 22:45:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3428294
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetkidlousycook/pseuds/sweetkidlousycook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'"I don't need a daisy chain," he mutters, staring at it intently. It is delicate and feminine and he feels a sudden pang of envy, which is ridiculous because envying dead plant matter is irrational to the extreme. Irrational feelings bother him, especially as they seem to be the only sort of feelings he has.'</p><p>(warnings for child abuse/neglect)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Afternoons

Severus Snape is twelve years old going on fifty and the summer is almost over, but he doesn't care one way or another. Summer holidays are already abstracts to him, even if he doesn't have the words to explain his though processes. He has come to the conclusion that location and season don't matter because he's still himself either way, but on the bright side Lily Evans is always there too. Today's activity is daisy-chain production, elegantly delegated - he is in charge of collection while she is in charge of fabrication. She has made three so far, one around her neck and two around her wrists, and a pile of long-stemmed daisies in her lap. He is just as methodical about daisy harvesting as he is about chopping ingredients in potions class, always paired together under Slughorn's approving gaze, and he knows she appreciates both.

"Finished! This one's for you."

"I don't need a daisy chain," he mutters, staring at it intently. It is delicate and feminine and he feels a sudden pang of envy, which is ridiculous because envying dead plant matter is irrational to the extreme. Irrational feelings bother him, especially as they seem to be the only sort of feelings he has.

"Yes you do."

He doesn't argue. She places it on him with high solemnity, as if it's an Arthurian knighting ceremony and she is Guinevere or the Lady of the Lake, but the chain is too small and instead of falling around his neck it sits on his head like a tiny crown. Lily stifles a laugh and he glares at her.

"I'm not laughing _at_ you, Sev, I swear. It's one of those things that's accidentally funny. I'm laughing with you."

He doesn't point out that he isn't laughing. He could, but he won't.

"Actually, it looks rather nice," she adds, as if daring him to contradict her. She takes off her own chain, removes a couple of stems, and puts it back on her own head. "See, now we match. It's okay."

"It suits you."

"Thank you." She pretends to be imperious for a while, as anyone beautiful wearing a crown might, then sits back down with her legs crossed and her knees grass-stained. "I wonder if fairies wear flowers like this."

Severus thinks about it momentarily while shredding leaves with constant nervous energy. "Nah, they're too small. Maybe they could wear one flower upside down or something like those prissy drawings, but they'd probably just eat them."

"I've never seen a fairy or a pixie," she says sadly, poking the ground with a stick. She still hasn't grown out of treating everything like a make-believe wand just because she has a real one of her own now. "I wonder why? I mean, this year I've seen a poltergeist and loads of ghosts and three unicorns, but still not one little pixie. Do they not like me or something?"

How could they not like you? How could anyone not like you? He doesn't say this, of course. His life feels as if it is made up entirely of deeply relevant and important things he doesn't say at all. But silence is only helpful at home and in the school common room; he has to speak with Lily or she needles the real answers out of him faster than he can adapt. "I dunno. At school I bet they keep them away with cleaning and everything, and at home Petunia probably scares them off by being all muggle-y. Good thing too, a stupid pixie bit me once when my mum was trying to get their nest out of my bedroom curtains."

"Really?" Severus wonders if he should be offended that she sounds so excited about his getting injured but reminds himself it's nothing personal and he would be just the same in her shoes. They chat about pixie incidents, about her pet cat, about the kitten Severus found in the dustbin, until suddenly they realise the summer twilight is setting in and Lily is hungry.

"Better go. Shepherd's pie for tea," she says with a wide smile.

"Okay."

They hold hands for a moment, to say goodbye without words and to affirm their silent prayer-spell they perfected while waiting for their Hogwarts letters. Even though their wish has been granted they pray all the same. Then she heads off into the trees that border her half of town like she's a mythological sylph and he walks in the opposite direction, into the maze of terraced workers' tenements.

He didn't tell his parents where he was going but they're not waiting for him, they're just drinking tea and smoking like chimneys and having another argument about the housekeeping budget. His father hasn't gone to the pub yet and he still smells of the factory, sweat and oil. He steps on the squeaky floorboard and they turn around to face him.

Suddenly, Severus remembers. He still has flowers in his hair.

Like a girl.

The flowers tumble from his head, petals still intact. The slap rings and rings in his ears but he wouldn't need to hear to understand his father's words, the way his mouth twists angrily, spitting. His mum stands to the side, cringing and placating, but as young as he is he knows it's for her own sake not his.

***

His mum says that fourteen is too old to be hanging around alone with a girl, that there will be "trouble", but she's lost all rights to control him this summer. He decided that a while ago and he's sticking to it. Lily's attic in afternoon sunlight is like something from a melodramatic novel, all sunbeams and dust motes. There's even a spare bed up there, a steel-framed thing they can barely fit on. He lets her lie on the bed then moves into the corner to see if there are any mouse holes like there are in his skirting boards.

"Sev, come here. Your hair's a mess."

"Ugh, no, I'm not letting you - " he starts, but he's already settled down between her legs, kneeling between her knees with his head bowed like he's praying. He folds his arms angrily anyway just to make a point. It's as if she has a string tied around his wrist, and every time she speaks she pulls it. Not roughly. But enough.

She puts her left hand on his neck while she starts on the knots and he feels like he's being electrocuted or slapped repeatedly around the face before she even tugs at any tangles. He almost flails out of her grasp but catches himself and breathes deeply in counts of three.

She hums whenever she brushes his hair and he wonders why. Is it something her mother does? Maybe if his mother sang and brushed his hair he'd be more like Lily, but she never did so he's not. It seems unlikely but it makes a simple enough fairy tale so he chooses to keep it as a possibility. It's better than the truth.

She's brushed his hair into submission but the way she keeps threading it through her fingers, twisting and twirling as if its her own, suggests she isn't done. "I want to plait your hair," she says brightly, and his stomach sinks as if he's been eating rocks.

"Better not," he croaks. "I'd just have to take it out straight away. What if my dad saw it like that?"

"You shouldn't care what he thinks, he gets angry about everything," she coos. She's already parting his hair into three. She's right. Of course she's right. There will always be something that sets his father off. But better have it be something small, something controllable, something outside all their influence. He can't afford a transgression this huge. Not now. Not ever. Yes, better he rage about the price of a pint or Edward Heath or his mysteriously disappearing rolling baccy than his son coming home with flowers in his plaited hair.

She pulls his hair hard as she starts a French braid but he doesn't even flinch. When her fingers touch his scalp it's electric and only somewhat in a bad way. He wonders if he wants to kiss her. That would be the right thing to do, wouldn't it? If you're in a melodramatic attic in a lazy summer evening and you're alone with someone you love and they're touching you. A real man would kiss her, probably. A real man would at least want to. His mother says a boy and a girl their age can't be left alone like this, and he's sure he loves her but he's even more sure he's not a real man because kissing sounds disgusting. Spit and tongues and clashing teeth probably. There's nothing he could tell her with a kiss he couldn't tell her with a tap on her wrist, a smile, her fingers in his hair, a silent and ancient prayer.

He locks this moment in his heart, hides it somewhere so it doesn't spill out of his eyes and the twitch at the side of his mouth and let everyone know. He imagines a tiny casket of carved, dark wood with an ornate gold lock. He can almost feel the key in his hand. It would be heavy and steal warmth from his skin. He imagines putting the feeling inside the casket, locking it, hiding it in the floorboards of a deep dark room then walking backwards out of it down a corridor, past a thousand doors and out into a garden. Everything is easier when you turn it into a mental exercise in hiding.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to [wingale](http://archiveofourown.org/users/wingale/profile) and beeby-raccoon on tumblr for inspiring this


End file.
